No terrorism cover on insurance

Less than one in five travel insurance policies provides cover for people caught up in terrorist attacks.

Six out of 10 single trip travel insurance policies and 62% of annual ones offer no cover against instances linked to terrorism, according to travel insurer InsureandGo.

Among those which do offer some cover for terrorist incidents 11.4% of single trip policies and 9.7% of annual ones provided medical cover only, while just 1% of both types of policy offered medical, personal accident and baggage cover.

Overall, only 12.5% of single trip policies and 16% of annual ones provided unrestricted protection against acts of terrorism.

As recent incidents have shown, people with a travel insurance policy that does not cover terrorist incidents would be left to fend for themselves if they were caught up in an attack. Unless hurt, the local British Embassy will offer little more than advice.

InsureandGo is calling on the travel insurance industry to dramatically improve the level of cover it offers in relation to terrorist incidents.

Figures from the National Counterterrorism Center in the US show there were 14,000 terrorist incidents around the world during 2006, 25% more than in 2005.Many of these occurred in Iraq, and the US government has a myriad of reasons for exaggerating the threat

Perry Wilson, managing director of InsureandGo, says: "Given these alarming figures, it is clear that travel insurance policies should offer cover against terrorism as standard but at the moment, a number of policies don't which is a real black mark against the industry."

This subject repeatedly comes up in the media and what the ABI usually do is waffle on that customers can find policies with terrorism cover if they try hard enough. This report shows that cover is not easy to find, and even if you are an insurance expert, it is often very difficult to work out if, or when, a policy would cover terrorist incidents. One get out commonly used buy claims departments of insurers, is that they will cover a terrorist incident, but not delay or cancellation just due to a terror alert.